Adding some colour to the garden on the cheap.

 I ordered this "etagere" on line a few weeks ago from http://www.greenfingers.com/. It is probably something I could have picked up at a car boot sale but I didn't feel like waiting when I found pretty much what I wanted on line.

It wasn't a bad price for only £9.99.

I also picked up this box that had been made from old packing crates at a reclamation shop.

This week, I popped into Homebase and got a tester pot of something that would both colour and give a little protection.

Only £3.86 and I managed to get the two pieces done.

I'm pleased with the results. It just makes a change from plain wood (which I love btw) and adds a bit of interest. Being someone who just loves to craft, sometimes the fun lies in being able to pimp things up.

x

Finishing unfinished business

I have always wanted to sew.

 I never managed to master that skill at school and wondered if I ever would.

About 5 or 6 years ago, in a fit of optimism, I asked Dave for a sewing machine for Christmas. I tried to get my head round the instructions but just had a total mental block.

Fast forward to around this time last year and I booked myself onto a beginners sewing course and the mental block crumbled away.

Last Summer I had been working on sewing a patch work curtain to go under Leah's bed, by hand! I wanted desperately to be able to make something lovely for my little girl or at least try. I had bought these "charm squares"  to get me going.

Once I mastered the sewing machine, things went a whole lot quicker. I managed to get one curtain finished. Then I got bored and away it went.

I decided that before I moved onto a new project, I needed to finish what I had started.

Once I dug around in my huge bag of fabric, I got a nice surprise and found I was further on then I had thought.

I had one complete curtain and all the other squares were sown and ready to go.

So, this afternoon, I spent a relaxing couple of hours finishing it off in earnest.

The more I worked, the more my confidence grew.

Before I knew it, I had a pair of curtains ready to hang.

Mess now hidden.

With Leah back from camp tomorrow, I'm hoping she'll be pleased her mum finally got her act together!

They are not perfect, they could probably do with having more of a drop but I have learnt quite a lot making them and that can't be a bad thing.

x

Pillowcase bag

I've been intending to blog about stuff I make alongside my gardening blog but as I haven't made anything for sometime there wasn't anything to say. Until now.....

My youngest is on camp and my oldest is spending afternoons at tennis camp so I have a couple of hours to myself. I love my kids but it was bliss.

I had this Martha Stewart sewing book for Christmas and had seen the pillowcase bag, which looked about my ability level. Fast forward 8 months and I finally get around to doing something about it.

Instructions really aren't my thing at all but even I thought this was doable. Just a case of cutting off the closed end, cutting the pillowcase in half and hemming the cut sides. Then put one side inside the other, sew the sides and then turn inside out and sew the bottom.

I think what also appealed to me about this project was the fact that it could be done on the cheap. Due to our poor taste in soft furnishings, we do not possess a pillowcase that inpsired me one bit. Thankfully I was in House of Fraser, looking in the sales when I spotted the bedding stuff was hugely reduce. So I grabbed a few pillowcases, I figured if it all went horribly wrong it was no big loss.

Now, I had bought this rotary cutter months ago and I finally used it today. Makes cutting out so easy.

My sewing machine, cheap, seemed like a bargain at the time, very difficult to use. Makes seams a bit wonky no matter how hard I try.

The finished result.

Only took an hour and a half from start to finish.

Just hoping this is the start of a bout of crafting.

x